(no subject)
Title: The Story of Us
Chapter: 4/?
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Characters/Pairing: Ben/Leslie, Leslie/Ann; ensemble.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6175 this chapter
Disclaimer: I am not Mike Schur (but god I wish I were)
Synopsis: All the goood romantic comedies are set at Christmastime. Ben's life, however, is the opposite of a romantic comedy. (High school AU, as always!)
Notes: When it rains, it pours, I guess? The other day, I was thinking about putting this on semi-hold for another project, but a little bit of writing for another fandom entirely opened the floodgates, as it were, and... another chapter. Hopefully y'all will enjoy it. We'll see. :)
It’s like, Ben doesn’t like to presume.
But now that he’s decided that he has a - okay, a thing - for Leslie, he really wants to know what’s going on with her and Ann.
He debates over asking Andy, but he realizes that absolutely nothing good can come of that. Even if Andy knows something he doesn’t - which doesn’t seem likely, since the other day, Andy asked him whether peanut butter was a vegetable - he also has a gigantic mouth. It’s not that he’s malicious about it, but Ben is pretty sure that if he asked in the most innocent way whether Leslie and Ann were more than friends, it would be headline news within their group by the next day simply because Andy has no filter whatsoever.
By that token, he’s not sure what possesses him to do what he does next. But on a Thursday afternoon in early December, two weeks to the day after his Thanksgiving revelation, he leans over to Joan Callamezzo in chem class and asks quietly, “What do you know about Ann Perkins?”
Joan looks him up and down like a hyena checking out a gimpy gazelle. “What do you wanna know?” she asks with a smug smile. Joan knows everything about everyone. She’s like the Perez Hilton of Pawnee High. He can’t stand her morning announcements or the way she’s wearing twenty pounds of makeup at two in the afternoon on a Thursday, but, well, if anyone would have dirt on Ann and Leslie, it would be her.
Ben shrugs. “What’s the deal with her and Leslie Knope? Like, what are they, girlfriends or something?” He tries not to sound too nasty about it, because, uh, Ben is totally not a homophobe. Ben once got a handjob from another guy at an out-of-town debate team meet (everyone has gay thoughts), so he is more than okay with lesbians. It’s just that, you know, he does kind of want to know what the deal is with those two girls.
So Joan rolls her eyes. “Total lesbians,” she says. “And it’s funny, ‘cause Ann Perkins used to be a total skank. She’s dated, like, every guy at this school. She’s the female Mark Brendanawicz - they dated, too, by the way. And then all of a sudden she stopped dating around totally, and she and Leslie are all BFFs now, and it’s like, totally obvious that they’re in love.”
“Huh.” Ben frowns. “But do you have, like, proof? Or is it just a rumor?”
“Just trust me.” Joan gives him her hyena smile.
*
It’s December 16th. They have exactly one week left of school, which means it’s time for the annual Candy Cane Sale (Sponsored by Sweetums™), which means the events committee has to run it because, well, it’s their job. They get a lot of their budget for spring events from this sale, according to Leslie, because apparently people at Pawnee High are fucking nuts for candy canes.
They’re also fucking nuts for secret admirer messages. Ben finds this out quickly when he asks why there’s such a long line at his card table. “It’s because people are obsessed with love letters,” April says. “It’s a stupid tradition. You send a candy cane and you put a secret admirer note on it. Whatever.”
Great. Love letters. Perfect. But he finds that he actually kind of enjoys selling them, because it means he gets to read other peoples’ love notes. He finds out that at least twenty girls have crushes on Bobby Newport, who’s far and away winning this love letter thing. Shauna Malwae-Tweep sends one to Chris Traeger and doesn’t make eye contact with Ben when she gives him her $1.50, and that weird kid Orin sends one to April (it’s written in red ink and made to look like blood, and he’s signed it in calligraphy). Jean-Ralphio plunks down a twenty and sends thirteen candy canes to thirteen different girls, where the only thing different on each note is their name, and then buys one more and sends it anonymously to - Ben chokes on his saliva as he reads it - Tom. Donna gets a bunch and Brandi Maxwell gets a metric fuckton, almost more than Bobby Newport, and even Carl Lorthner gets a couple, but what’s really getting Ben down is that even though he’s reading each card he’s handed, none of them are addressed to him.
(Merry fucking Christmas to you, too.)
*
On the last day before the sale finishes, near the very end of the day, Ben quietly slips six quarters into the cash box and picks up a single candy cane. He writes out a message quickly, not allowing time to second-guess his words.
He tosses it into the box and doesn’t look back.
*
It’s the last day of school before winter break and finals are just about over, which means that the events committee gets to get out of their last class - it’s two hours long, because they go on block schedule the last three days of every semester - and dress up like Santa and run around handing out the candy canes.
They’re out of Santa costumes by the time Ben shows up. “That’s okay,” says Leslie, adjusting her hat. “You’ll totally fit in the elf suit.”
Ben has never felt so intensely stupid in his entire life than when he steps out wearing a green felt tunic with curlicues over his shoes and a fucking pointy hat.
Andy is practicing his ho-ho-hos and, well, he actually makes a pretty good Santa. So does Jerry. Everybody else is barely trying. They split up into pairs on Leslie’s suggestion and grab their baskets of candy canes, and Leslie grabs Ben by the arm as everyone else is choosing their partners. “You can be with me,” she says with a grin.
Ben looks at her through his peripherals. “Aren’t you going to be with Ann?” he asks.
“Ann’s gonna be with Tom,” she shrugs. “C’mon, let’s just go.”
They’re running down the hallway together, both holding big baskets of candy canes with their arms linked, and Leslie’s laughing hysterically because Ben keeps tripping over the curly elf points affixed to his shoes with flimsy elastic bands. “Oh, shut up,” he says and she laughs harder as they open the door to Room 303 and walk inside.
“Candy cane delivery!” Leslie chirps, and Mrs. Restrepo waves an arm and tells them to go ahead. They quickly read off the names, Leslie calling them out and Ben tossing the candy cane to the lucky recipient, and when they finish and head out the door,
*
They finish their basket quickly, because they’ve been expertly sorted and they move fast, so they’re the first to make it back to the now-empty classroom they all met in to begin with. Leslie’s talking a mile a minute and when she takes off her Santa hat, her hair is sticking up from static and it’s really cute. He feels a sudden urge to pat it down and this time he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t rationalize what he wants down to a wimpy compromise. Instead, he just reaches both his hands out and smoothes down the rampant flyaways, sunshine blonde. “Your hair is insane,” he grins. “Static.”
“Ugh, stupid hat,” Leslie says, making a face as she flings said stupid hat across the room. “Is it any better?”
Ben pulls his hands back and gives her a look up and down. “Well, yeah, mostly,” he says. “I did the best I could. It looks like you’re going to make it.”
She laughs brightly, as sunny as her hair. “Thank you so much, Doctor Wyatt,” she says in a mock-serious tone, like someone on one of those stupid hospital dramas Ann likes so much. “How can I ever repay you?”
“I have a few ideas,” Ben grins. And then he falters. “No - shit - I didn’t mean, you know, like that. We were doing a bit, you know? Don’t think I’m one of those guys, because I’m -”
“Calm down!” Leslie is laughing again. “Don’t worry. You’re fine.”
“Good.” Ben bites his lip, and then reaches into his sweater pocket. “Oh, by the way. This was in my basket of candy canes. I didn’t want to, like, embarrass you or anything, so I thought I’d withhold it, you know, and not do it in front of some random class or whatever, because that’s totally weird.” He hands her a candy cane with a note attached. “Who’s it from?”
Leslie’s face is instantly illuminated with something resembling - hope? Joy? Probably just standard-issue teen girl emotions, whatever. “I don’t know,” she says as she takes it from him, reading the note intently. “There’s no name.”
“What does it say?” asks Ben, leaning over to read the note himself. Like he has to. He knows exactly what it says.
Leslie shrugs and reads it aloud. “Leslie - you’re truly amazing. I hope you know that. Signed, a friend.”
“I wonder what it means,” Ben muses. “You have a lot of friends.”
She snorts. “Well, thanks,” she says. “Speaking of. I think I hear someone -”
The classroom door swings open then, and Tom and Ann burst in, arguing loudly about the relative merits of Coldplay. “They write beautiful love songs!” Ann is practically shouting, and Tom looks as if his head’s about to explode, and then they both look over at where Ben and Leslie are sitting and rush over to look at Leslie’s candy cane, and the moment - whatever it meant - is lost.
*
Christmas is terrible.
It comes the Sunday after the last day of school, and it’s just the worst the holiday has ever gone. Ben gets a check for three hundred dollars from his dad and a check for two hundred fifty dollars from his mom, but at least his mom bothered to enclose hers in a card instead of just opening his checkbook and scrawling it out right there on the spot. They have a tense, quiet family dinner at around two in the afternoon and then Ben escapes to his room, where he opens his laptop and listens to Morrissey to drown out the now-familiar arguing down the hall.
Between songs he hears a door slam, and pauses his iPod quickly. He’d bet money it’s his father. He scrambles over to the window, looks out the blind, and yep, his dad is peeling out of the driveway, looking pissed as usual. Ben rolls his eyes and looks around the room, then, on a whim, pulls a sweater over his plaid button-down and grabs his backpack, shoving his phone into his back pocket and his feet into his shoes.
“Mom?” he calls down the hall. “I’m going for a walk, okay? I’ll be back later.”
She doesn’t answer, which is Wyatt code for “Knock yourself out.” He pulls on his coat and winds his scarf around his neck. He’s not sure where he’s going, but Pawnee isn’t that big. He’ll find somewhere to go.
*
Where he ends up is Leslie’s house. It’s around five or six when he shows up, and it’s getting much colder out. It’s dark and the lights on all the houses down the street are all aglow but, characteristically, the Knope house shines the brightest. He hesitates on the sidewalk outside, but there are lights on indoors and he can see the blue light of the TV flickering in one of the windows, so he steels his will and starts up the steps to the front porch, and rings the doorbell.
A woman whom he assumes must be Leslie’s mother answers the door. “Can I help you?” she asks, a bit abruptly.
“Um, yeah,” says Ben, nervous despite himself. “I was wondering if Leslie was around? I’m a friend of hers, from school.”
Mrs. Knope - Mrs. Griggs-Knope, oops, he always forgets despite seeing her name on all the letterheads of the flyers the school board puts in mailboxes around town - gives him a skeptical look. “What’s your name, son?”
“Ben. Um, Ben Wyatt.”
Her face softens when he says that, and all of a sudden she’s smiling. “Oh, of course, honey! Why didn’t you just say that? Leslie’s mentioned you before.” She turns into the house and calls, “Leslie! Ben’s here to see you!” Then, looking him up and down (at his pink cheeks and probably frozen-blue nose), she pats him on the arm and adds, “Why don’t you come in? You look like you just walked through an ice storm.”
“Thanks,” he says awkwardly, and steps inside, unsure of whether Leslie’s mom knows that he’s been inside their house before. He decides to play it safe. “You have a lovely home, Ms. Griggs-Knope.”
She smiles. “Call me Marlene,” she says, but, with a warning look, she adds, “but only when you’re over here.”
“Right. Of course. I’m sorry. I’m… probably just going to call you Ms. Griggs-Knope because it’s easier.”
Leslie, then, appears in the front hallway, wearing pajama pants and a Pawnee High Model UN sweatshirt. “Oh, hey, Ben!” she says, a little skeptically, just like her mother. “What’s - why are you here? It’s Christmas.”
“Ah.” Ben shifts from foot to foot. “It’s… actually kind of a long story. My parents, you know.”
“Oh, right.” She nods quickly, succinctly. Got it. “You know, I was just watching It’s a Wonderful Life upstairs, uh. But I’ve seen it a bunch of times. Do you want to hang out or something?”
He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to intrude on your, you know, family time or anything -”
Leslie’s mom shakes her head. “Please. I have a whole load of work to catch up on. If you kids want to spend some time together, go right ahead.”
“I know,” Leslie says thoughtfully. “We could take a walk around town and look at all the lights, you know, while they’re all still lit up. If you want to, I mean.”
Ben nods. “That sounds - I’m okay with that. But I’m kind of cold?”
“I’ll make cocoa and we can take it in thermoses,” Leslie says. “Hang on a minute. Let me just go put on real-person clothes, and we’ll be off.” She takes up running back up the stairs, and then it’s just Ben and Leslie’s mom again.
“So,” says Leslie’s mom. “You’re the new kid, huh?”
“Yeah,” Ben says awkwardly. “I just moved here in August, from, ah, Indianapolis.”
“What do your parents do?”
“My dad’s in insurance and my mom’s a dental hygienist. Not very exciting or anything.” He pulls at his backpack straps with both hands. “You’re on the school board?”
“Oh, yeah,” Leslie’s mom laughs. “Just doing my part, you know.”
Ben nods. “That’s cool,” he says.
It’s just starting to get awkward when Leslie tromps back down the stairs, her checkered pajama pants replaced by a pair of jeans that Ben assumes must have been a Christmas present, since he’s never seen them before. Her hair is pulled back under a grey woolen beret and she’s got a pair of gloves hanging out the pocket of her hoodie. “Okay,” she says by way of announcing her own presence. “Let’s make this cocoa and we’re on our way.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re meandering down Newport Court, several blocks away from Leslie’s house. This is the nice neighborhood, the area where the houses are all ostentatiously decorated, with wooden painted cut-outs of Santa and elves and the Grinch and, at one house, a spectacularly authentic nativity scene. Ben points it out and Leslie rolls her eyes. “That’s the Langmans’ house,” she sighs. “You know, Marcia, from school? The girl who’s always trying to get everybody to come to church with her?”
“Oh, that girl?” Ben says, raising his eyebrows. “She seems harmless enough, I don’t know. Other than that time she caused a fuss in English when she didn’t think we should be reading Catcher in the Rye because of the language…”
“You haven’t known her all your life, though,” Leslie says, bitter as the chilly air around them. “Last year, she tried to get the GSA shut down because she said we were violating her rights to go to school in a space that didn’t insult her religion or something.”
“That… makes no sense,” Ben remarks.
“I know that and you know that, but her parents are both lawyers, you know?” Leslie heaves a sigh as they contemplate the Baby Jesus. “They ended up getting the GSA dance canceled, anyway - the administration said we had to hold it off-campus but we couldn’t use school funds to pay for it, and there’s some kind of loophole in the rules that said we couldn’t hold any kind of fundraiser, either. That’s why the bake sale for homecoming had to be so secretive.”
Ben shakes his head. “That’s awful. And they just… got away with it?”
“You can get away with a lot if you have money in this town,” Leslie shrugs. “The Langmans, the Newports, the Kernstons, the Meagles… I mean, Donna’s really nice, don’t get me wrong, but her family is super rich. They just keep it to themselves instead of throwing money around, trying to get rules bent for them. I love Pawnee, but I don’t love people who think that they deserve special treatment.”
“Is that why you want to stay here after college?”
“Yeah, probably.” Leslie looks up at the sky, and Ben follows her gaze. They can’t see stars; it’s dark and clouded over. “I mean, I want to be a force for good in the world, you know? Make things better for normal people instead. Do things that benefit everybody. I don’t think there’s a better place to start that right here where I grew up.” She realizes, perhaps, what she’s saying, and then giggles. “I’m sorry. I sound like a college essay or something. God, we still have a year left. I don’t have to worry about those yet.”
“Yeah, please don’t,” Ben says dryly. “But I get it. I think that’s… really admirable. I do.”
“Thanks,” she says, and then, “ooh! I love this house - every year, they have all these signs explaining how to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in all these different languages. It’s awesome. Mele Kalikimaka, Ben!”
“Feliz Navidad, Leslie.”
She grins at him, and takes a sip from her thermos. He returns her smile. It’s warm, like cocoa. Like Christmas. Like Leslie.
*
When he shows up back at his house, chilly but smiling, his dad’s car is still gone from the driveway.
He lets himself into the house, not saying a word. When he walks into the kitchen to get some leftovers from Christmas dinner-lunch, his mother is sitting there in the large, adjacent dining room, parked at the table with a wine goblet in front of her and the bottle beside it.
“Oh,” he says. “Hi. Mom. Merry Christmas.”
She gives him a look that he can’t read. “Did you have a nice time?”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” he says, putting a scoop of mashed potatoes and a bit of ham on his plate. He contemplates microwaving, but decides against it, and instead takes a knife and fork from the silverware drawer and carries it all into the dining room, and sits across from his mother. “I went for a walk with Leslie and we looked at Christmas lights.”
His mother frowns a bit. “Were her parents all right with you taking her away on Christmas?”
“Oh, I talked to her mom. She was okay with it, she had a lot of work.” Ben forks some potatoes into his mouth.
“You and I always used to go out and look at the lights,” she says, giving him a small smile. “Remember those houses back in Indianapolis?”
Ben swallows and nods. “The Disney house, that was the best,” he says, referring to one which always decorated according to the theme of one Disney film or another. The last year they had gone out light-watching, it had been Aladdin. “And the people with the really big tree, kind of over by my middle school, remember?”
“Of course.” His mom smiles again. “You loved that tree.”
He nods, remembering. “Yeah,” he says. “Can I have some wine?”
She gives him a withering look. “You’re sixteen, Benjamin,” she says.
“I know. It was a joke.”
“Oh, go get a glass. Not one of the nice ones.” Ben arches an eyebrow, and his mother shrugs. “Oh, please, Ben. You’re old enough in Europe and besides, I’d rather you do it in the house.” He disappears into the kitchen and returns with one of the cheap wine glasses they bought at Target when they first moved in, and his mom pours him half a glass. He glances at the label. Merlot. From someplace in California called Paso Robles. The name sounds familiar - was it in that movie Sideways? He takes a sip and shrugs.
“It’s okay,” he says, off his mother’s expectant look. “I don’t know.”
She laughs a little. “Not all it’s cracked up to be, huh?” He takes another sip. He doesn’t really like wine; he prefers the stuff he’s had at parties - beer and schnapps and jello shots, and other alcohols mixed into sodas and things. But wine is something that people drink because they appear to be enjoying it, not just because they want to get drunk. He doesn’t really get it, but he senses that he’d like to be the kind of person who drinks for the taste and not just for the after-effects.
He doesn’t say any of this. “I guess it’s just not what I expected,” he says instead. “But it’s okay.”
“If you’re not going to finish it, I will.”
He passes his glass across the table and finishes his ham and potatoes, then goes to back to the fridge and cracks open a Dr Pepper.
When he gets back to his bedroom, he looks at his phone, which he’s been avoiding all day. There’s a whole list of texts from different people, mostly holiday greetings. He types out a quick mass text of his own, then hits ‘send’ just as the clock hits 12:00 a.m., December 26.
He tries to make a list that night, but has trouble thinking of anything he likes other than one certain person. The list goes unfinished.
He has trouble falling asleep that night, but he still doesn’t hear his father come in.
*
Winter vacation mostly passes like this. Everyone gets together to hang out at someone’s house a few times a week - Donna’s family is skiing in Utah for the first half of the break, but for the most part, they’re all together. And it’s nice, even though it refuses to snow and there’s not a whole lot else to do when it’s freezing outside and Christmas is over and there’s no snow.
Nonetheless, Ann resolves to have a New Year’s Eve party this year, since her Halloween party didn’t end up happening. “It’d just have to be us,” she stresses. “Nobody else from school or whatever. I just want to have, you know, a small get-together. Pizza and make-your-own sundaes and we can watch the ball drop. Small.”
“I love it,” Chris says from where he’s sitting on the floor, stretching his hamstrings in some kind of pose that strikes Ben as vaguely obscene. “Way to think, Ann Perkins.”
Tom doesn’t look so positive. “Really, though? That’s your suggestion? Make-your-own sundaes and Ryan Seacrest? Wow, you know, I’d rather chew off my own foot ‘cause it’s caught in a bear trap.”
“Really? What’s your idea, then?” Ann says moodily. “T-Pain? Strippers? Strippers dressed like T-Pain?”
“Look, I’m just saying, my dad treated Detlef Schrempf at his clinic three weeks ago. I bet we could get him to come. Maybe Roy Hibbert, too - not makin’ any promises, but yeah.”
“I don’t know who either of those people are,” Ann says. “But I’m pretty sure I don’t want them in my living room.”
Leslie sighs loudly. “Look, I think Ann’s idea is good,” she says. “Just a quiet get-together. They’re having some fireworks in Ramsett Park at midnight. Maybe we could all go over there and watch them. It’d be fun.”
“I agree,” Ben says a little too quickly. But Leslie shoots him a tiny smile anyway.
*
The party turns out all right. The sundaes are kind of a bust, since Ann’s parents won’t spring for any of the good toppings and they have to settle for, like, fresh fruit and granola, but it’s fun anyway. They play a bunch of stupid party games, Pin the Tail on the Picture of Ann’s Grandpa Hanging in the Living Room and Twister (fully clothed, much to Tom’s protestations) and some kind of weird clapping game that Ben doesn’t really understand. Apparently it’s one of those things you have to have grown up with to really “get,” though Chris seems to be picking it up quickly enough.
At quarter til twelve, they jump in Donna’s car and drive to Ramsett Park, where the fireworks are being set up. Ben is hanging around with Andy and April, and April is talking about how Eraserhead is the best movie ever made and Andy is arguing in favor of Die Hard, and Ben thinks they’re both crazy because clearly the best movie ever made is Shawshank Redemption, or maybe Pulp Fiction? He doesn’t really know which. Anyway, by the time the fireworks start to go off - and, well, chalk another one up to the disappointment side, they’re not even big ones, just, like, leftovers from the Fourth of July - Andy and April are fully making out, and he gets the sense that he’s definitely not wanted.
He glances around. Everybody’s just standing around, part of the crowd. Jerry and Chris are standing near, but not with, each other. Tom and Donna are chatting, ignoring the whole show. Ben spots Leslie and Ann and starts to make a break toward them, but then he glances down and notes that they’re holding hands.
They look - almost - together. In a way that reminds Ben uncomfortably of how he and Leslie were standing on Christmas night, on the sidewalk across from the Langmans’ ostentatious nativity scene.
He chews on his lip, and sidles up to Chris instead.
“Nice display, huh?” he mutters.
Chris grins. “These are literally the best fireworks I’ve ever seen.”
That wasn’t what he meant.
*
When Ann finally kicks them all out of her house that night, it’s fully two in the morning, a time with which Ben is only acquainted in the sense that he frequently stays up, watching bad old shows on TV Land or Nick at Nite, programs that fade into infomercials after a certain time. He has many, many memories of falling asleep during a Gilligan’s Island or Get Smart rerun and waking up to a commercial for a do-it-your-self at-home colonic. But he’s not really used to being out and about at this time.
His house isn’t really too far away from Ann’s. They live in the same school zone, Leslie informed them at one point; he would have gone to Wamapoke Elementary with Ann had he been raised here while Leslie would have stayed at Pawnee Elementary. So it’s not too far of a drive away. But Jesus, he is really tired.
“I’m sorry,” he yawns. “I’ve been up since like six a.m. I’ve been sleeping really badly lately.”
Ann glances around the living room, unsure. “Well, Leslie’s already sleeping over, on the couch. But you could probably sleep on the floor.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, hang on. Let me just go ask my parents.” Ann disappears into the house, then returns with an armful of pillows and blankets a few minutes later. “They said yes, but they also said no hanky-panky of any kind, and they’re really strict about this stuff. So, I mean, I know you guys aren’t like - into each other, or anything, but just a warning, okay?”
Ben takes the bedding from her and sets it on the floor beside the couch. “God, thank you so much, Ann. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No problem,” she says with a yawn. “‘Kay, I am super exhausted. I’ll see you guys in the morning, okay?”
“Okay,” they chorus as she leaves the room. Leslie is sitting cross-legged on the couch, half-covered by the Perkins’ TV blanket, wearing her Model UN hoodie again with the signatures of last year’s whole team all over the sleeves. Ben does his best not to look at her as he sets down the pillows and the blankets in the middle of the floor, trying his best to create some sort of bed. The carpet is soft, but it’s not that soft.
“You want any of the cushions from up here?” Leslie asks. He glances up and wonders if she’s been watching him go the entire time.
“No,” he says, “but thanks. That’s okay, though.”
“Okay.” She falls silent again, and then adds, “I mean, it really wouldn’t be a big deal. Or we could switch, even. I’m okay with sleeping on the floor.”
Ben bites his tongue. “I’m really okay, Leslie,” he says. He eases himself down onto the floor and pulls the blanket over him, then sighs and closes his eyes, willing sleep to come to him quickly tonight. It never does, of course. No matter how exhausted he is, it seems like he just can’t turn off his brain and his body long enough to get any meaningful amount of sleep, and it always takes him so fucking long to do it.
Leslie hops off the couch and pads across the room, and turns the living room lights off. It’s quiet, and outside they can hear people still setting off the odd firecracker down the street and outside. She retakes her position on the couch, lies down on her side. Ben is turned away from her, but can see her reflection in the TV screen.
Ann’s living room is foreign like this. There’s a ticking in the background that Ben recognizes as the noise of a grandfather clock that’s apparently some kind of family heirloom (an “Ann-tique,” as Leslie put it), and the house glows in strange places from unexpected digital readouts on DVD players and such. The Perkinses keep their Christmas tree up until the New Year. The room smells of pine.
“Ben?” Leslie’s voice comes through the darkness and it sounds - different, somehow.
He swallows before he answers. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You’ve been acting weird tonight. Ever since the fireworks.”
“I’m not acting weird.”
“Yeah, you are.” Her voice sounds less patient than usual. “I don’t get it. For the past few weeks, it’s been, like, you’re always really nice to me, and we talk all the time and hang out all the time -”
“Not all the time.”
“What?”
“We don’t hang out all the time. You and Ann hang out all the time. We hang out when Ann is busy,” Ben says, his frustration boiling over. He knows, in some capacity, that he’s going to regret this, but fuck it. He’s going to say it anyway. “I just feel like, I don’t know. Like I’ve been making you a priority but you only consider me an option.”
Leslie doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then she says, quietly, “Ben, you know I make all my friends my priorities.”
“But Ann is number one.”
“Of course Ann is number one! We’ve been best friends since pre-K! Andy -”
“I know, I know, Andy fell off a slide and broke his arm and you two were traumatized and you had to go to the office together and you became best friends. I know, Leslie. Everyone does.”
“God, Ben, you don’t get it, do you? Ann is my best friend. I’ve only known you for a few months.” She heaves a sigh, sits up, shaking her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous or something.”
Ben doesn’t say anything. Suddenly, he’s afraid that this says everything.
“… Ben?”
He stays on the floor, his back to her, watching her reflection in the TV screen still. “I… guess I am,” he says in a very small voice.
She doesn’t say anything.
Neither does he.
Finally, he sits up. He still doesn’t turn to look at her, but instead, scoots across the floor so that his back is against the bottom part of the couch. He props his legs up in front of him and rests his hands on his knees.
“I like you,” Leslie finally says, and, well, it’s out there. They can’t turn around after this. No putting it in reverse. Leslie has just slammed her foot on the gas and driven right off a cliff.
And Ben doesn’t know what to say. Because Leslie has just said the words he’s been fighting with himself over for months now. He knows he owes it to her, on some level, to be truthful. She’s been honest with him. It’s the least he can do. But he can’t say it to her face. He can’t turn around and tell her because it would take more balls than he has at this particular moment.
But he can say it to the darkness and he can say it to the carpet on Ann’s living room floor. So he digs one of his thumbnails into the skin on the pad of his index finger and stares at the floor and says, quietly, “I like you too.”
“So I wasn’t the only one?”
The question is so plaintive - so honest - that it knocks the air out from inside him, and suddenly he’s biting back a giggle. “No,” he murmurs. “You weren’t… the only one.”
“So we both… like each other. In that way.”
But it isn’t that easy. And they both know it.
Ben sighs. He has to spit it out. Whether he likes it or not, he has to know. “What about you and Ann?” he asks, quietly.
Leslie shifts where she’s sitting on the couch, visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” she says in a very small voice. “I like Ann, too.”
“Are you two - you know. Girlfriends?”
She bites her lip. “I mean, we’re not in a relationship. So technically, no.”
“Then what’s your deal?”
“It’s really complicated.” Her eyes flicker back and forth across the room, giving off the impression of a small animal trapped in a cage. “I mean, it’s like… we don’t have a ‘normal’ friendship, quote-unquote, whatever that means. I like her and I know she likes me, but we always said we didn’t want to make it a big thing between us. It’s just, you know, a thing. A thing that’s complicated.”
“Do you love her?”
Leslie takes a short breath in. “I love her as a friend,” she says. “And she means the world to me. She’s my best friend. Beyond that… I don’t know.”
Ben’s stomach is sinking as he leans his head back against the seat of the couch. “Okay,” he says, without knowing what he’s saying. The words don’t seem to have any meaning. He stares at the ceiling, up into the dark. “That’s okay.”
Leslie shifts. He doesn’t want to look at her. “Ben,” she murmurs, so quietly it’s barely a whisper.
“What?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she shifts next to him again, and sits up on her knees so that she’s hovering right above him. Their eyes are level when he meets her gaze, and she puts a palm on both of his cheeks.
Ben knows what’s about to happen before it happens, and he closes his eyes and tilts his head up like he was born ready. When their lips meet, he kisses Leslie, ever so softly, like it’s all he’s ever lived for.
Leslie doesn’t have any of that shit. She pulls on Ben’s bottom lip with the pad of her thumb, opens him up and kisses him deep, with the kind of ownership a boy usually thinks he has over a girl. She keeps her hands on either side of his jaw and when she’s had enough she pulls away and gives him a sly smile, keeping a few of her fingers on the nape of his neck.
“Hi,” she says quietly, her lips so close to his.
“Hi,” he says. Her hand is hot on his neck and he realizes suddenly that his own hands feel heavy at his sides, and what the fuck does he do with them now? He’s completely forgotten.
“Is that the kind of thing you were talking about before?” she asks very seriously. He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s exactly it.”
She giggles a little and moves in closer to him again, lets her lips brush against his, and this time he kisses her harder, like it’s the only thing he was meant for.
And this is precisely when Ann’s mom flips on the light.
Chapter: 4/?
Fandom: Parks and Recreation
Characters/Pairing: Ben/Leslie, Leslie/Ann; ensemble.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 6175 this chapter
Disclaimer: I am not Mike Schur (but god I wish I were)
Synopsis: All the goood romantic comedies are set at Christmastime. Ben's life, however, is the opposite of a romantic comedy. (High school AU, as always!)
Notes: When it rains, it pours, I guess? The other day, I was thinking about putting this on semi-hold for another project, but a little bit of writing for another fandom entirely opened the floodgates, as it were, and... another chapter. Hopefully y'all will enjoy it. We'll see. :)
It’s like, Ben doesn’t like to presume.
But now that he’s decided that he has a - okay, a thing - for Leslie, he really wants to know what’s going on with her and Ann.
He debates over asking Andy, but he realizes that absolutely nothing good can come of that. Even if Andy knows something he doesn’t - which doesn’t seem likely, since the other day, Andy asked him whether peanut butter was a vegetable - he also has a gigantic mouth. It’s not that he’s malicious about it, but Ben is pretty sure that if he asked in the most innocent way whether Leslie and Ann were more than friends, it would be headline news within their group by the next day simply because Andy has no filter whatsoever.
By that token, he’s not sure what possesses him to do what he does next. But on a Thursday afternoon in early December, two weeks to the day after his Thanksgiving revelation, he leans over to Joan Callamezzo in chem class and asks quietly, “What do you know about Ann Perkins?”
Joan looks him up and down like a hyena checking out a gimpy gazelle. “What do you wanna know?” she asks with a smug smile. Joan knows everything about everyone. She’s like the Perez Hilton of Pawnee High. He can’t stand her morning announcements or the way she’s wearing twenty pounds of makeup at two in the afternoon on a Thursday, but, well, if anyone would have dirt on Ann and Leslie, it would be her.
Ben shrugs. “What’s the deal with her and Leslie Knope? Like, what are they, girlfriends or something?” He tries not to sound too nasty about it, because, uh, Ben is totally not a homophobe. Ben once got a handjob from another guy at an out-of-town debate team meet (everyone has gay thoughts), so he is more than okay with lesbians. It’s just that, you know, he does kind of want to know what the deal is with those two girls.
So Joan rolls her eyes. “Total lesbians,” she says. “And it’s funny, ‘cause Ann Perkins used to be a total skank. She’s dated, like, every guy at this school. She’s the female Mark Brendanawicz - they dated, too, by the way. And then all of a sudden she stopped dating around totally, and she and Leslie are all BFFs now, and it’s like, totally obvious that they’re in love.”
“Huh.” Ben frowns. “But do you have, like, proof? Or is it just a rumor?”
“Just trust me.” Joan gives him her hyena smile.
*
It’s December 16th. They have exactly one week left of school, which means it’s time for the annual Candy Cane Sale (Sponsored by Sweetums™), which means the events committee has to run it because, well, it’s their job. They get a lot of their budget for spring events from this sale, according to Leslie, because apparently people at Pawnee High are fucking nuts for candy canes.
They’re also fucking nuts for secret admirer messages. Ben finds this out quickly when he asks why there’s such a long line at his card table. “It’s because people are obsessed with love letters,” April says. “It’s a stupid tradition. You send a candy cane and you put a secret admirer note on it. Whatever.”
Great. Love letters. Perfect. But he finds that he actually kind of enjoys selling them, because it means he gets to read other peoples’ love notes. He finds out that at least twenty girls have crushes on Bobby Newport, who’s far and away winning this love letter thing. Shauna Malwae-Tweep sends one to Chris Traeger and doesn’t make eye contact with Ben when she gives him her $1.50, and that weird kid Orin sends one to April (it’s written in red ink and made to look like blood, and he’s signed it in calligraphy). Jean-Ralphio plunks down a twenty and sends thirteen candy canes to thirteen different girls, where the only thing different on each note is their name, and then buys one more and sends it anonymously to - Ben chokes on his saliva as he reads it - Tom. Donna gets a bunch and Brandi Maxwell gets a metric fuckton, almost more than Bobby Newport, and even Carl Lorthner gets a couple, but what’s really getting Ben down is that even though he’s reading each card he’s handed, none of them are addressed to him.
(Merry fucking Christmas to you, too.)
*
On the last day before the sale finishes, near the very end of the day, Ben quietly slips six quarters into the cash box and picks up a single candy cane. He writes out a message quickly, not allowing time to second-guess his words.
He tosses it into the box and doesn’t look back.
*
It’s the last day of school before winter break and finals are just about over, which means that the events committee gets to get out of their last class - it’s two hours long, because they go on block schedule the last three days of every semester - and dress up like Santa and run around handing out the candy canes.
They’re out of Santa costumes by the time Ben shows up. “That’s okay,” says Leslie, adjusting her hat. “You’ll totally fit in the elf suit.”
Ben has never felt so intensely stupid in his entire life than when he steps out wearing a green felt tunic with curlicues over his shoes and a fucking pointy hat.
Andy is practicing his ho-ho-hos and, well, he actually makes a pretty good Santa. So does Jerry. Everybody else is barely trying. They split up into pairs on Leslie’s suggestion and grab their baskets of candy canes, and Leslie grabs Ben by the arm as everyone else is choosing their partners. “You can be with me,” she says with a grin.
Ben looks at her through his peripherals. “Aren’t you going to be with Ann?” he asks.
“Ann’s gonna be with Tom,” she shrugs. “C’mon, let’s just go.”
They’re running down the hallway together, both holding big baskets of candy canes with their arms linked, and Leslie’s laughing hysterically because Ben keeps tripping over the curly elf points affixed to his shoes with flimsy elastic bands. “Oh, shut up,” he says and she laughs harder as they open the door to Room 303 and walk inside.
“Candy cane delivery!” Leslie chirps, and Mrs. Restrepo waves an arm and tells them to go ahead. They quickly read off the names, Leslie calling them out and Ben tossing the candy cane to the lucky recipient, and when they finish and head out the door,
*
They finish their basket quickly, because they’ve been expertly sorted and they move fast, so they’re the first to make it back to the now-empty classroom they all met in to begin with. Leslie’s talking a mile a minute and when she takes off her Santa hat, her hair is sticking up from static and it’s really cute. He feels a sudden urge to pat it down and this time he doesn’t think about it, doesn’t rationalize what he wants down to a wimpy compromise. Instead, he just reaches both his hands out and smoothes down the rampant flyaways, sunshine blonde. “Your hair is insane,” he grins. “Static.”
“Ugh, stupid hat,” Leslie says, making a face as she flings said stupid hat across the room. “Is it any better?”
Ben pulls his hands back and gives her a look up and down. “Well, yeah, mostly,” he says. “I did the best I could. It looks like you’re going to make it.”
She laughs brightly, as sunny as her hair. “Thank you so much, Doctor Wyatt,” she says in a mock-serious tone, like someone on one of those stupid hospital dramas Ann likes so much. “How can I ever repay you?”
“I have a few ideas,” Ben grins. And then he falters. “No - shit - I didn’t mean, you know, like that. We were doing a bit, you know? Don’t think I’m one of those guys, because I’m -”
“Calm down!” Leslie is laughing again. “Don’t worry. You’re fine.”
“Good.” Ben bites his lip, and then reaches into his sweater pocket. “Oh, by the way. This was in my basket of candy canes. I didn’t want to, like, embarrass you or anything, so I thought I’d withhold it, you know, and not do it in front of some random class or whatever, because that’s totally weird.” He hands her a candy cane with a note attached. “Who’s it from?”
Leslie’s face is instantly illuminated with something resembling - hope? Joy? Probably just standard-issue teen girl emotions, whatever. “I don’t know,” she says as she takes it from him, reading the note intently. “There’s no name.”
“What does it say?” asks Ben, leaning over to read the note himself. Like he has to. He knows exactly what it says.
Leslie shrugs and reads it aloud. “Leslie - you’re truly amazing. I hope you know that. Signed, a friend.”
“I wonder what it means,” Ben muses. “You have a lot of friends.”
She snorts. “Well, thanks,” she says. “Speaking of. I think I hear someone -”
The classroom door swings open then, and Tom and Ann burst in, arguing loudly about the relative merits of Coldplay. “They write beautiful love songs!” Ann is practically shouting, and Tom looks as if his head’s about to explode, and then they both look over at where Ben and Leslie are sitting and rush over to look at Leslie’s candy cane, and the moment - whatever it meant - is lost.
*
Christmas is terrible.
It comes the Sunday after the last day of school, and it’s just the worst the holiday has ever gone. Ben gets a check for three hundred dollars from his dad and a check for two hundred fifty dollars from his mom, but at least his mom bothered to enclose hers in a card instead of just opening his checkbook and scrawling it out right there on the spot. They have a tense, quiet family dinner at around two in the afternoon and then Ben escapes to his room, where he opens his laptop and listens to Morrissey to drown out the now-familiar arguing down the hall.
Between songs he hears a door slam, and pauses his iPod quickly. He’d bet money it’s his father. He scrambles over to the window, looks out the blind, and yep, his dad is peeling out of the driveway, looking pissed as usual. Ben rolls his eyes and looks around the room, then, on a whim, pulls a sweater over his plaid button-down and grabs his backpack, shoving his phone into his back pocket and his feet into his shoes.
“Mom?” he calls down the hall. “I’m going for a walk, okay? I’ll be back later.”
She doesn’t answer, which is Wyatt code for “Knock yourself out.” He pulls on his coat and winds his scarf around his neck. He’s not sure where he’s going, but Pawnee isn’t that big. He’ll find somewhere to go.
*
Where he ends up is Leslie’s house. It’s around five or six when he shows up, and it’s getting much colder out. It’s dark and the lights on all the houses down the street are all aglow but, characteristically, the Knope house shines the brightest. He hesitates on the sidewalk outside, but there are lights on indoors and he can see the blue light of the TV flickering in one of the windows, so he steels his will and starts up the steps to the front porch, and rings the doorbell.
A woman whom he assumes must be Leslie’s mother answers the door. “Can I help you?” she asks, a bit abruptly.
“Um, yeah,” says Ben, nervous despite himself. “I was wondering if Leslie was around? I’m a friend of hers, from school.”
Mrs. Knope - Mrs. Griggs-Knope, oops, he always forgets despite seeing her name on all the letterheads of the flyers the school board puts in mailboxes around town - gives him a skeptical look. “What’s your name, son?”
“Ben. Um, Ben Wyatt.”
Her face softens when he says that, and all of a sudden she’s smiling. “Oh, of course, honey! Why didn’t you just say that? Leslie’s mentioned you before.” She turns into the house and calls, “Leslie! Ben’s here to see you!” Then, looking him up and down (at his pink cheeks and probably frozen-blue nose), she pats him on the arm and adds, “Why don’t you come in? You look like you just walked through an ice storm.”
“Thanks,” he says awkwardly, and steps inside, unsure of whether Leslie’s mom knows that he’s been inside their house before. He decides to play it safe. “You have a lovely home, Ms. Griggs-Knope.”
She smiles. “Call me Marlene,” she says, but, with a warning look, she adds, “but only when you’re over here.”
“Right. Of course. I’m sorry. I’m… probably just going to call you Ms. Griggs-Knope because it’s easier.”
Leslie, then, appears in the front hallway, wearing pajama pants and a Pawnee High Model UN sweatshirt. “Oh, hey, Ben!” she says, a little skeptically, just like her mother. “What’s - why are you here? It’s Christmas.”
“Ah.” Ben shifts from foot to foot. “It’s… actually kind of a long story. My parents, you know.”
“Oh, right.” She nods quickly, succinctly. Got it. “You know, I was just watching It’s a Wonderful Life upstairs, uh. But I’ve seen it a bunch of times. Do you want to hang out or something?”
He takes a shaky breath. “I don’t want to intrude on your, you know, family time or anything -”
Leslie’s mom shakes her head. “Please. I have a whole load of work to catch up on. If you kids want to spend some time together, go right ahead.”
“I know,” Leslie says thoughtfully. “We could take a walk around town and look at all the lights, you know, while they’re all still lit up. If you want to, I mean.”
Ben nods. “That sounds - I’m okay with that. But I’m kind of cold?”
“I’ll make cocoa and we can take it in thermoses,” Leslie says. “Hang on a minute. Let me just go put on real-person clothes, and we’ll be off.” She takes up running back up the stairs, and then it’s just Ben and Leslie’s mom again.
“So,” says Leslie’s mom. “You’re the new kid, huh?”
“Yeah,” Ben says awkwardly. “I just moved here in August, from, ah, Indianapolis.”
“What do your parents do?”
“My dad’s in insurance and my mom’s a dental hygienist. Not very exciting or anything.” He pulls at his backpack straps with both hands. “You’re on the school board?”
“Oh, yeah,” Leslie’s mom laughs. “Just doing my part, you know.”
Ben nods. “That’s cool,” he says.
It’s just starting to get awkward when Leslie tromps back down the stairs, her checkered pajama pants replaced by a pair of jeans that Ben assumes must have been a Christmas present, since he’s never seen them before. Her hair is pulled back under a grey woolen beret and she’s got a pair of gloves hanging out the pocket of her hoodie. “Okay,” she says by way of announcing her own presence. “Let’s make this cocoa and we’re on our way.”
Twenty minutes later, they’re meandering down Newport Court, several blocks away from Leslie’s house. This is the nice neighborhood, the area where the houses are all ostentatiously decorated, with wooden painted cut-outs of Santa and elves and the Grinch and, at one house, a spectacularly authentic nativity scene. Ben points it out and Leslie rolls her eyes. “That’s the Langmans’ house,” she sighs. “You know, Marcia, from school? The girl who’s always trying to get everybody to come to church with her?”
“Oh, that girl?” Ben says, raising his eyebrows. “She seems harmless enough, I don’t know. Other than that time she caused a fuss in English when she didn’t think we should be reading Catcher in the Rye because of the language…”
“You haven’t known her all your life, though,” Leslie says, bitter as the chilly air around them. “Last year, she tried to get the GSA shut down because she said we were violating her rights to go to school in a space that didn’t insult her religion or something.”
“That… makes no sense,” Ben remarks.
“I know that and you know that, but her parents are both lawyers, you know?” Leslie heaves a sigh as they contemplate the Baby Jesus. “They ended up getting the GSA dance canceled, anyway - the administration said we had to hold it off-campus but we couldn’t use school funds to pay for it, and there’s some kind of loophole in the rules that said we couldn’t hold any kind of fundraiser, either. That’s why the bake sale for homecoming had to be so secretive.”
Ben shakes his head. “That’s awful. And they just… got away with it?”
“You can get away with a lot if you have money in this town,” Leslie shrugs. “The Langmans, the Newports, the Kernstons, the Meagles… I mean, Donna’s really nice, don’t get me wrong, but her family is super rich. They just keep it to themselves instead of throwing money around, trying to get rules bent for them. I love Pawnee, but I don’t love people who think that they deserve special treatment.”
“Is that why you want to stay here after college?”
“Yeah, probably.” Leslie looks up at the sky, and Ben follows her gaze. They can’t see stars; it’s dark and clouded over. “I mean, I want to be a force for good in the world, you know? Make things better for normal people instead. Do things that benefit everybody. I don’t think there’s a better place to start that right here where I grew up.” She realizes, perhaps, what she’s saying, and then giggles. “I’m sorry. I sound like a college essay or something. God, we still have a year left. I don’t have to worry about those yet.”
“Yeah, please don’t,” Ben says dryly. “But I get it. I think that’s… really admirable. I do.”
“Thanks,” she says, and then, “ooh! I love this house - every year, they have all these signs explaining how to say ‘Merry Christmas’ in all these different languages. It’s awesome. Mele Kalikimaka, Ben!”
“Feliz Navidad, Leslie.”
She grins at him, and takes a sip from her thermos. He returns her smile. It’s warm, like cocoa. Like Christmas. Like Leslie.
*
When he shows up back at his house, chilly but smiling, his dad’s car is still gone from the driveway.
He lets himself into the house, not saying a word. When he walks into the kitchen to get some leftovers from Christmas dinner-lunch, his mother is sitting there in the large, adjacent dining room, parked at the table with a wine goblet in front of her and the bottle beside it.
“Oh,” he says. “Hi. Mom. Merry Christmas.”
She gives him a look that he can’t read. “Did you have a nice time?”
“Yeah, I did, actually,” he says, putting a scoop of mashed potatoes and a bit of ham on his plate. He contemplates microwaving, but decides against it, and instead takes a knife and fork from the silverware drawer and carries it all into the dining room, and sits across from his mother. “I went for a walk with Leslie and we looked at Christmas lights.”
His mother frowns a bit. “Were her parents all right with you taking her away on Christmas?”
“Oh, I talked to her mom. She was okay with it, she had a lot of work.” Ben forks some potatoes into his mouth.
“You and I always used to go out and look at the lights,” she says, giving him a small smile. “Remember those houses back in Indianapolis?”
Ben swallows and nods. “The Disney house, that was the best,” he says, referring to one which always decorated according to the theme of one Disney film or another. The last year they had gone out light-watching, it had been Aladdin. “And the people with the really big tree, kind of over by my middle school, remember?”
“Of course.” His mom smiles again. “You loved that tree.”
He nods, remembering. “Yeah,” he says. “Can I have some wine?”
She gives him a withering look. “You’re sixteen, Benjamin,” she says.
“I know. It was a joke.”
“Oh, go get a glass. Not one of the nice ones.” Ben arches an eyebrow, and his mother shrugs. “Oh, please, Ben. You’re old enough in Europe and besides, I’d rather you do it in the house.” He disappears into the kitchen and returns with one of the cheap wine glasses they bought at Target when they first moved in, and his mom pours him half a glass. He glances at the label. Merlot. From someplace in California called Paso Robles. The name sounds familiar - was it in that movie Sideways? He takes a sip and shrugs.
“It’s okay,” he says, off his mother’s expectant look. “I don’t know.”
She laughs a little. “Not all it’s cracked up to be, huh?” He takes another sip. He doesn’t really like wine; he prefers the stuff he’s had at parties - beer and schnapps and jello shots, and other alcohols mixed into sodas and things. But wine is something that people drink because they appear to be enjoying it, not just because they want to get drunk. He doesn’t really get it, but he senses that he’d like to be the kind of person who drinks for the taste and not just for the after-effects.
He doesn’t say any of this. “I guess it’s just not what I expected,” he says instead. “But it’s okay.”
“If you’re not going to finish it, I will.”
He passes his glass across the table and finishes his ham and potatoes, then goes to back to the fridge and cracks open a Dr Pepper.
When he gets back to his bedroom, he looks at his phone, which he’s been avoiding all day. There’s a whole list of texts from different people, mostly holiday greetings. He types out a quick mass text of his own, then hits ‘send’ just as the clock hits 12:00 a.m., December 26.
He tries to make a list that night, but has trouble thinking of anything he likes other than one certain person. The list goes unfinished.
He has trouble falling asleep that night, but he still doesn’t hear his father come in.
*
Winter vacation mostly passes like this. Everyone gets together to hang out at someone’s house a few times a week - Donna’s family is skiing in Utah for the first half of the break, but for the most part, they’re all together. And it’s nice, even though it refuses to snow and there’s not a whole lot else to do when it’s freezing outside and Christmas is over and there’s no snow.
Nonetheless, Ann resolves to have a New Year’s Eve party this year, since her Halloween party didn’t end up happening. “It’d just have to be us,” she stresses. “Nobody else from school or whatever. I just want to have, you know, a small get-together. Pizza and make-your-own sundaes and we can watch the ball drop. Small.”
“I love it,” Chris says from where he’s sitting on the floor, stretching his hamstrings in some kind of pose that strikes Ben as vaguely obscene. “Way to think, Ann Perkins.”
Tom doesn’t look so positive. “Really, though? That’s your suggestion? Make-your-own sundaes and Ryan Seacrest? Wow, you know, I’d rather chew off my own foot ‘cause it’s caught in a bear trap.”
“Really? What’s your idea, then?” Ann says moodily. “T-Pain? Strippers? Strippers dressed like T-Pain?”
“Look, I’m just saying, my dad treated Detlef Schrempf at his clinic three weeks ago. I bet we could get him to come. Maybe Roy Hibbert, too - not makin’ any promises, but yeah.”
“I don’t know who either of those people are,” Ann says. “But I’m pretty sure I don’t want them in my living room.”
Leslie sighs loudly. “Look, I think Ann’s idea is good,” she says. “Just a quiet get-together. They’re having some fireworks in Ramsett Park at midnight. Maybe we could all go over there and watch them. It’d be fun.”
“I agree,” Ben says a little too quickly. But Leslie shoots him a tiny smile anyway.
*
The party turns out all right. The sundaes are kind of a bust, since Ann’s parents won’t spring for any of the good toppings and they have to settle for, like, fresh fruit and granola, but it’s fun anyway. They play a bunch of stupid party games, Pin the Tail on the Picture of Ann’s Grandpa Hanging in the Living Room and Twister (fully clothed, much to Tom’s protestations) and some kind of weird clapping game that Ben doesn’t really understand. Apparently it’s one of those things you have to have grown up with to really “get,” though Chris seems to be picking it up quickly enough.
At quarter til twelve, they jump in Donna’s car and drive to Ramsett Park, where the fireworks are being set up. Ben is hanging around with Andy and April, and April is talking about how Eraserhead is the best movie ever made and Andy is arguing in favor of Die Hard, and Ben thinks they’re both crazy because clearly the best movie ever made is Shawshank Redemption, or maybe Pulp Fiction? He doesn’t really know which. Anyway, by the time the fireworks start to go off - and, well, chalk another one up to the disappointment side, they’re not even big ones, just, like, leftovers from the Fourth of July - Andy and April are fully making out, and he gets the sense that he’s definitely not wanted.
He glances around. Everybody’s just standing around, part of the crowd. Jerry and Chris are standing near, but not with, each other. Tom and Donna are chatting, ignoring the whole show. Ben spots Leslie and Ann and starts to make a break toward them, but then he glances down and notes that they’re holding hands.
They look - almost - together. In a way that reminds Ben uncomfortably of how he and Leslie were standing on Christmas night, on the sidewalk across from the Langmans’ ostentatious nativity scene.
He chews on his lip, and sidles up to Chris instead.
“Nice display, huh?” he mutters.
Chris grins. “These are literally the best fireworks I’ve ever seen.”
That wasn’t what he meant.
*
When Ann finally kicks them all out of her house that night, it’s fully two in the morning, a time with which Ben is only acquainted in the sense that he frequently stays up, watching bad old shows on TV Land or Nick at Nite, programs that fade into infomercials after a certain time. He has many, many memories of falling asleep during a Gilligan’s Island or Get Smart rerun and waking up to a commercial for a do-it-your-self at-home colonic. But he’s not really used to being out and about at this time.
His house isn’t really too far away from Ann’s. They live in the same school zone, Leslie informed them at one point; he would have gone to Wamapoke Elementary with Ann had he been raised here while Leslie would have stayed at Pawnee Elementary. So it’s not too far of a drive away. But Jesus, he is really tired.
“I’m sorry,” he yawns. “I’ve been up since like six a.m. I’ve been sleeping really badly lately.”
Ann glances around the living room, unsure. “Well, Leslie’s already sleeping over, on the couch. But you could probably sleep on the floor.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, hang on. Let me just go ask my parents.” Ann disappears into the house, then returns with an armful of pillows and blankets a few minutes later. “They said yes, but they also said no hanky-panky of any kind, and they’re really strict about this stuff. So, I mean, I know you guys aren’t like - into each other, or anything, but just a warning, okay?”
Ben takes the bedding from her and sets it on the floor beside the couch. “God, thank you so much, Ann. You’re a lifesaver.”
“No problem,” she says with a yawn. “‘Kay, I am super exhausted. I’ll see you guys in the morning, okay?”
“Okay,” they chorus as she leaves the room. Leslie is sitting cross-legged on the couch, half-covered by the Perkins’ TV blanket, wearing her Model UN hoodie again with the signatures of last year’s whole team all over the sleeves. Ben does his best not to look at her as he sets down the pillows and the blankets in the middle of the floor, trying his best to create some sort of bed. The carpet is soft, but it’s not that soft.
“You want any of the cushions from up here?” Leslie asks. He glances up and wonders if she’s been watching him go the entire time.
“No,” he says, “but thanks. That’s okay, though.”
“Okay.” She falls silent again, and then adds, “I mean, it really wouldn’t be a big deal. Or we could switch, even. I’m okay with sleeping on the floor.”
Ben bites his tongue. “I’m really okay, Leslie,” he says. He eases himself down onto the floor and pulls the blanket over him, then sighs and closes his eyes, willing sleep to come to him quickly tonight. It never does, of course. No matter how exhausted he is, it seems like he just can’t turn off his brain and his body long enough to get any meaningful amount of sleep, and it always takes him so fucking long to do it.
Leslie hops off the couch and pads across the room, and turns the living room lights off. It’s quiet, and outside they can hear people still setting off the odd firecracker down the street and outside. She retakes her position on the couch, lies down on her side. Ben is turned away from her, but can see her reflection in the TV screen.
Ann’s living room is foreign like this. There’s a ticking in the background that Ben recognizes as the noise of a grandfather clock that’s apparently some kind of family heirloom (an “Ann-tique,” as Leslie put it), and the house glows in strange places from unexpected digital readouts on DVD players and such. The Perkinses keep their Christmas tree up until the New Year. The room smells of pine.
“Ben?” Leslie’s voice comes through the darkness and it sounds - different, somehow.
He swallows before he answers. “Yeah?”
“Are you okay?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. You’ve been acting weird tonight. Ever since the fireworks.”
“I’m not acting weird.”
“Yeah, you are.” Her voice sounds less patient than usual. “I don’t get it. For the past few weeks, it’s been, like, you’re always really nice to me, and we talk all the time and hang out all the time -”
“Not all the time.”
“What?”
“We don’t hang out all the time. You and Ann hang out all the time. We hang out when Ann is busy,” Ben says, his frustration boiling over. He knows, in some capacity, that he’s going to regret this, but fuck it. He’s going to say it anyway. “I just feel like, I don’t know. Like I’ve been making you a priority but you only consider me an option.”
Leslie doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then she says, quietly, “Ben, you know I make all my friends my priorities.”
“But Ann is number one.”
“Of course Ann is number one! We’ve been best friends since pre-K! Andy -”
“I know, I know, Andy fell off a slide and broke his arm and you two were traumatized and you had to go to the office together and you became best friends. I know, Leslie. Everyone does.”
“God, Ben, you don’t get it, do you? Ann is my best friend. I’ve only known you for a few months.” She heaves a sigh, sits up, shaking her head. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were jealous or something.”
Ben doesn’t say anything. Suddenly, he’s afraid that this says everything.
“… Ben?”
He stays on the floor, his back to her, watching her reflection in the TV screen still. “I… guess I am,” he says in a very small voice.
She doesn’t say anything.
Neither does he.
Finally, he sits up. He still doesn’t turn to look at her, but instead, scoots across the floor so that his back is against the bottom part of the couch. He props his legs up in front of him and rests his hands on his knees.
“I like you,” Leslie finally says, and, well, it’s out there. They can’t turn around after this. No putting it in reverse. Leslie has just slammed her foot on the gas and driven right off a cliff.
And Ben doesn’t know what to say. Because Leslie has just said the words he’s been fighting with himself over for months now. He knows he owes it to her, on some level, to be truthful. She’s been honest with him. It’s the least he can do. But he can’t say it to her face. He can’t turn around and tell her because it would take more balls than he has at this particular moment.
But he can say it to the darkness and he can say it to the carpet on Ann’s living room floor. So he digs one of his thumbnails into the skin on the pad of his index finger and stares at the floor and says, quietly, “I like you too.”
“So I wasn’t the only one?”
The question is so plaintive - so honest - that it knocks the air out from inside him, and suddenly he’s biting back a giggle. “No,” he murmurs. “You weren’t… the only one.”
“So we both… like each other. In that way.”
But it isn’t that easy. And they both know it.
Ben sighs. He has to spit it out. Whether he likes it or not, he has to know. “What about you and Ann?” he asks, quietly.
Leslie shifts where she’s sitting on the couch, visibly uncomfortable. “I don’t know,” she says in a very small voice. “I like Ann, too.”
“Are you two - you know. Girlfriends?”
She bites her lip. “I mean, we’re not in a relationship. So technically, no.”
“Then what’s your deal?”
“It’s really complicated.” Her eyes flicker back and forth across the room, giving off the impression of a small animal trapped in a cage. “I mean, it’s like… we don’t have a ‘normal’ friendship, quote-unquote, whatever that means. I like her and I know she likes me, but we always said we didn’t want to make it a big thing between us. It’s just, you know, a thing. A thing that’s complicated.”
“Do you love her?”
Leslie takes a short breath in. “I love her as a friend,” she says. “And she means the world to me. She’s my best friend. Beyond that… I don’t know.”
Ben’s stomach is sinking as he leans his head back against the seat of the couch. “Okay,” he says, without knowing what he’s saying. The words don’t seem to have any meaning. He stares at the ceiling, up into the dark. “That’s okay.”
Leslie shifts. He doesn’t want to look at her. “Ben,” she murmurs, so quietly it’s barely a whisper.
“What?” he asks.
She doesn’t answer. Instead, she shifts next to him again, and sits up on her knees so that she’s hovering right above him. Their eyes are level when he meets her gaze, and she puts a palm on both of his cheeks.
Ben knows what’s about to happen before it happens, and he closes his eyes and tilts his head up like he was born ready. When their lips meet, he kisses Leslie, ever so softly, like it’s all he’s ever lived for.
Leslie doesn’t have any of that shit. She pulls on Ben’s bottom lip with the pad of her thumb, opens him up and kisses him deep, with the kind of ownership a boy usually thinks he has over a girl. She keeps her hands on either side of his jaw and when she’s had enough she pulls away and gives him a sly smile, keeping a few of her fingers on the nape of his neck.
“Hi,” she says quietly, her lips so close to his.
“Hi,” he says. Her hand is hot on his neck and he realizes suddenly that his own hands feel heavy at his sides, and what the fuck does he do with them now? He’s completely forgotten.
“Is that the kind of thing you were talking about before?” she asks very seriously. He nods. “Yeah,” he says. “That’s exactly it.”
She giggles a little and moves in closer to him again, lets her lips brush against his, and this time he kisses her harder, like it’s the only thing he was meant for.
And this is precisely when Ann’s mom flips on the light.